Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:35AM
from the playing-nice-with-others dept.

Stoobalou writes "A group of European MPs will today push EU bosses to say if the US government breached European privacy laws by snooping on Twitter users with links to whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks. The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) will today pose an oral question to the European Commission, seeking clarification from the US on a subpoena demanding the micro-blogging site hand over users' account details."

Well, I don't want to leave the impression I support the subpoena. I don't, and I believe it is correct for Twitter to fight it.

But be that as it may, if Twitter is a US company, based in the US, it is subject to US law. The EU can butt out.

If the US objected because of French subpoena served against a French company, operating in France, can you imagine the uproar?

Twitter is not operating in the US only, and it is reasonable to expect a foreign company that operates in your country to follow your country's laws. For example, let's say there's a US company that provides dancing underage boys as sex slaves for wealthy customers. Now that might be legal in the US, but I'm not sure they could operate in any country they choose to where slavery is illegal... just saying...

Just because the user agrees to be governed by US laws during the course of their normal usage of Twitter does not mean Twitter, Inc. is not subject to the laws of the country in which the user is accessing their service, especially so if they happen to have subsidiaries or other business operations in those countries, e.g. a sales office to handle advertising.

Well, if found guilty of something in an EU court, they could be levied with a fine. Said fine could be served on any subsidiaries or offices they may have in the EU. Should they not have any such offices (they do), any EU assets they may have could be seized, their directors and/or staff could be constrained from travelling to the EU. A "nuclear option" would be a court order requiring all EU ISPs to block Twitter. For global companies these days, they generally have to abide to some degree to all sorts of laws beyond those of their home country.

That would only be true if the EU counter part took part in the actions.

The problem is that you are still attempting to file charges and penalize someone not in the country, for action not done in the country, by people who are not citizens of that country.

Now if an EU subsidiary did something, then yea, it's under their jurisdiction. But when none of the offending act happens within the country or by people directly within the jurisdiction of the country, then it's a lot like charging you for speeding when

If literally every piece of of the infrastructure resides in the US, then sure, the EU has no jurisdiction. But if they are operating servers or networking infrastructure in the EU, they are still subject to EU laws.

Well, then either they can't operate in both jurisdictions, or they have to find a way to structure the company so that all EU customer data only resides in the EU and is therefore not subject to US subponeas.

Which country were the people whose twitter accounts the U.S. want?
Have they been to the U.S.?
Are there laws in the country where they used twitter that protects their right to privacy?
Does a company have the legal right to disclose information they obtained from another country where the laws expressly forbid divulging said information?
The U.S. can force the company to hand over the information but doing so will more than likely mean the company has broken the laws of the country the person resides i

Have you looked into the terms of service of twitter where the user agrees to be governed by US laws?And do you know that all over the world... except in the USA (and perhaps China and Iraq)... an agreement like this is void?In civilized countries you can not "give up" rights granted to you by law when you sign a contract. In other words the law is above contracts.

Again: Have you looked into the terms of service of twitter where the user agrees to be governed by US laws?Do you even know what this sentence means or is implying? It means that twitter is allowed to sue you in the US if you validate their terms of service. It also means you are allowed to sue twitter in the US if you feel mistreated by twitter. It does not mean that US law regarding privacy is applied to the contract relationship between twitter and its customers. In other words it does not mean that the US government is forced to obey US laws when spying on twitter users. And in contrary to what you implied to say: that is exactly what is happening here. In the US the US would need a warrant from a judge to "spy" on any US citizen. But for spying on a european they don't need a warrant? So Have you looked into the terms of service of twitter where the user agrees to be governed by US laws? is not to be honoured by the US themsleves?

I mean hell, even the article doesn't say the US violated EU laws, it says some group looking for another 15 minutes of fame is going to asked someone in power to tell them if they violated the law. And according to the article summery, they call these people the bosses wording it as if the entire group is still getting their asses handed to them in dodge ball on the playground at recess from middle school. I mean it's worded as if the question is true and it's attempting to make people believe it without paying attention to the rest of the stuff.

Microsoft is a US company but it didn't stop the EU regulating them. Google is a US company but they had to comply when the EU asked for Street View WiFi data gathered in the EU. Any business that wants to operate in the EU has to abide by EU laws, and Twitter is a business that advertises here and does deals with EU companies.

Once again, they don't operate in the US only. When a US based company operates (provides services) in another country, they must follow that country's laws. That's the actual point you fail to understand... repeatedly.

Actually what I'm saying is that a website that is reachable from anywhere (and takes no money) can not fall under the laws of every country from which it can be reached.

It is totally unworkable.

If by simply putting up a web page, or offering services free service on my server in the middle of Kansas I become subject simultaneously to the laws of every country on earth, then the Internet can no longer exist.

China understands that their laws apply within their borders. And they take all steps they feel nece

This is the exact problem the Internet is facing: it's worldwide, and doesn't care much about borders. On the other hand our legal systems worldwide assume the existence of borders. And that's where the two clash.

Twitter being a US company I would expect falls under US law. If all their servers are in the US only, it would be clear that they simply fall under US law, as it's a purely US based service. It's like the more traditional scenario of someone selling goods in a shop in the US. This

The EU can severely limit any "business" that Twitter conducts in the EU. That means, they will not be able to market their services, nor will they be able to derive income, in the EU until they sort out this mess.

Does Twitter do any business in the EU in the first place? I don't think just having Twitter accounts held by EU citizens count.

Do they advertise? I don't recall having ever seen a Twitter promotional.

Do they have any direct sales of advertisements to EU based companies, the sales of which is fully settled within the EU? It seems an EU company have to buy this advertising in the US instead, as I can't find any EU address on their web site.

It might be hard for the Americans to understand but conflicts can be solved without armies. It's very uncommon over there as it seems but even you will one day learn that marching into someone else's country is the very last option and not something you choose whenever a conflict arises (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan).

Except for the ones that ARE the Taliban. It's like saying that Americans do not like the GOP. That's only true if you consider the majority of America the "one true America". It's not that simple here or in Afghanistan.

the people of Iraq were dealt a losing hand long ago, and it wasn't by the US.

Uh, you hate to break it to you, but the USA helped install Saddam's party as the ruler of Iraq. You know, because they hated Iran and we wanted them to fight our war by proxy. Because Iran overthrew the puppet party we installed there. So, uh, if you don't think it was rainbows and sunshine

Considering that a typical US carrier can perhaps operate a month, max two until he needs new steel ropes to "catch" landing planes, and that the US lack the ability to produce such a simple thing themselves...

Considering that the typical US air strike force needs AWACS support to operate somewhere on the planet and 75% of all AWACS systems are operated by europeans....

Considering that the US have no decent fighter aircrafts (in comparison to modern russian and european air planes)... considering that the US tanks are just a joke in relation to a Leopard or a modern russian tank... considering that most "hardware" of the US is only expensive and overengineered electronic wise but otherwise not very impressive...

I simply fail to understand why the rest of the world united should not be able to fight a war against USA.

One very very simple thing you seem not to know at all: all countries of the world have 90% of the armed forces at home and only a VERY VERY small force for political reasons outside of the country, like in Afghanistan. The USA have 90% of theri forces spread all over the world... and NOTHING at home to defend themselves (9/11 e.g. shows that.... how many air wings where ready to intercept the planes? 3? And 2 training wings?)

Just because we contract some of our military stuff out to NATO partner countries doesn't mean we lack the capability of domestic production. Yeah, military hardware costs more than commercial off-the-shelf stuff, but it's also hardened and more reliable. Do you really want ICBMs with Chinese electrolytic caps? Yikes.

And the F-22 and F-35 are quite excellent aircraft. I don't believe the modern Russian aircraft suck or anything (the Su-35 etc) but the F-22 and F-35 likely do have air superiority in the studies I've seen. This is a silly point anyway, as Britain helped us develop the F-35.

I also am not sure why you think the Abrams is a "joke" compared to the panther. The firepower and electronics of the tanks are quite comparable, as is their speed/weight, but the Abrams has an edge in armor due to the use of depleted uranium, a capability which German manufacturing lacks due to political reasons. Compare the RHA equivalents for both tanks if you don't believe me.

Yes, you're quite correct in asserting most of our military is deployed overseas. Further, recent military cuts have reduced our capability of fighting multiple wars simultaneously. The US however still maintains the deterrence of a large nuclear arsenal, and if attacked and pressed by hostile nation states, I have little doubt we'd use them if we were pushed far enough and it was a matter of survival. Nuclear weapons as an ultimate deterrence make conventional forces seem weak, though it's hard to perform police actions or fight proxy wars with nukes. No, Germany does not have nuclear weapons, but it is not from a lack of trying.

I have great respect for Germany's armed forces throughout history, and Germany's industrial and technological superiority to the US for most of our existence. Today's battlefields and tactics are still defined by German technology.

At the battle of Kasserine Pass where Erwin Rommel defeated a much larger US force, do you think he would've won by being contemptuous and undervaluing the US forces?

Considering that a typical US carrier can perhaps operate a month, max two until he needs new steel ropes to "catch" landing planes, and that the US lack the ability to produce such a simple thing themselves...

Considering that the US Navy keeps three years worth of all essential consumables on hand "just in case", not much problem.

Considering that the typical US air strike force needs AWACS support to operate somewhere on the planet and 75% of all AWACS systems are operated by europeans....

Considering that every carrier carries a couple of its own airborne control aircraft (basically, a mini-awacs), not so much of a problem as you might think.

Considering that the US have no decent fighter aircrafts (in comparison to modern russian and european air planes)...

You've got something better than F-22 over there? I'm impressed.

considering that the US tanks are just a joke in relation to a Leopard or a modern russian tank...

Oddly enough, the US tanks use the same gun as the Leopard, and have better armour. And better engines. Not sure what the Leopard has to make it better. Much less Russian tanks, which M1's have been shooting up in overwhelming ratios since the first Gulf War.

I simply fail to understand why the rest of the world united should not be able to fight a war against USA.

You really want to know? Okay, it reduces to this - no other country in the world (even counting the EU as a country) has any real ability to move troops thousands of miles to attack a hostile shore. So when the vast fleet of transports required to move the EU (or other) army puts to sea, they'll have several weeks of sailing during which submarines will be sinking them, airstrikes will be sinking them (yah, the EU fighters don't have the range to cross the Atlantic to provide a CAP), and then when they get here, they'll have to figure out this whole "land on a hostile shore" experience. While being shot at by pretty much everyone and everything.

Note, for the record, that the last major amphibious attack took place in WW2. The last one big enough to even have a hope of taking on a serious power on its homeland took three years to prepare for (and was that quick because there was a base less than 100 miles from the hostile shore), even with absolute control of the sea and air around the battlefield.

Good luck with achieving such on our Atlantic seaboard with what the EU can bring to bear.

this part of the discussion leads off topic, I only jumped into it while I thought my parent poster was a bit of a dreamer regarding the US military superiority.

Oddly enough, the US tanks use the same gun as the Leopard, and have better armor. And better engines. Not sure what the Leopard has to make it better. Much less Russian tanks, which M1's have been shooting up in overwhelming ratios since the first Gulf War.

When the US army was about to decide whether to buy Abrahams or Leopards, roughly 10 yea

Thats what I was wondering. Its a foreign country requesting information from a foreign company (to the EU its a foreign company. Its a US based company). While it does involve some of their citizens, it has nothing to do with anything legally in the EU. The way I see it, legally it was like all the tweets they did were considered out of their country. Don't like that? Then use a system in your own country then it can be protected by your countries laws.

I realize you're largely joking there, but that's a serious problem we're going to have in the future. Between the definite espionage that happens in China and the possibility that a foreign government will decide to cut us off, we're quite vulnerable to that sort of thing at the moment.

Then Twitter can be fined, and if it doesn't pay up, banned from doing business in the EU, and any European assets seized.

Not doing business in the EU would mean no advertising revenue from the EU, which, as an economy bigger than China and the US would massively devalue Twitter. Whilst none of this would stop European users using Twitter, it'd become near impossible to monetize those users.

The US government may find itself no longer privileged enough in European eyes to enjoy access to banking data and so forth for "counter terrorism" purposes and other such privileged data access it enjoys too.

It probably wouldn't ever reach this stage, but it's naive to think that simply because they're a US company, they have no interests in Europe that can't be squeezed if they breach European law. It's also likely if the EU did levy a fine, that Twitter would just pay it anyway, simply because the fine is still going to be less than the long term profits to be obtained from a continued European prescence.

Besides, it's possible that the MEPs in question have no intention of seeing Twitter penalised anyway, more likely they're simply doing this to add pressure to the US government to drop it's request because like many people across the globe, including some in America, they simply believe that subpoena for communication records of a foreign MP just because that MP used an American firm is a step too far. I believe they're probably just sending a message that it's not acceptable, that's all- the US government undoubtedly knows how far the EU could take this if they so decided to.

Following may be a cover for “expert advice or assistance” and also point to "currency or monetary instruments or financial securities" efforts.
ie a tweet and follower helps a designated group’s PR image, and thereby helps “legitimize” it.

Since when is an American government dealing with an American company bound by European rules? Nobody forced us Europeans to sign up for Twitter. I think we're all aware it's an American entity and that American law applies above all others in this situation.

As long as Twitter wants to do business in the EU (selling ads to EU entities?) then it better follow EU law for its EU users. If they don't want that revenue, only providing a service from a US based website, ignoring it is fine.If I cross border shop I have to follow laws from both countries. Just shop for Marijuana in Holland as a german citizen. Yes, it's legally bought but the german police don't care about that at all.

The lack of an identified illegal act and of a judicial enquiry in the US casts a shadow on the whole process of lifting the protection of citizens' privacy for the sake of national security through such subpoena orders,"

Subpoenas get issues by courts, so there is a "judicial enquiry" and judicial oversight. And there is a potentially illegal act, namely the release of classified information; the prosecutor had to convince the judge of that. The order was by a US court to a US company. Furthermore, the individuals targeted were informed and given an opportunity to object.

In Europe, police would be able to get this information without any judicial oversight, without anybody being informed, and without anybody being able to object.

The complaints by these MEP are unfounded and apparently just being made to score political points; beating up on America is a politically successful strategy in Europe.

It was a court order, not a subpoena..... according to Rob Gongrijp (one of the EU citizens targeted):

On December 14 of 2010, the US Department of Justice has had a court order issued to force Twitter to send them various bits of information regarding my Twitter account as well as of the twitter accounts of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Jacob Appelbaum. In my previous blog post, I have erroneously referred to this order as a subpoena, which...

In Europe, police would be able to get this information without any judicial oversight, without anybody being informed, and without anybody being able to object.

It is more or less the same like in the US. You have to convince a judge to give a search warrant. If he does not do so you can not search or "request to hand over" informations. And frankly... judges here give warrants like this very very very rarely.

Every case where a judge gives such a warrant and then nothing is found is a very server obstacle in his future carrier.

In Europe, police would be able to get this information without any judicial oversight, without anybody being informed, and without anybody being able to object.

Bollocks.

Europe is not a nation state, European Law is a collection of treaties at best and despite claims in Luxemburg, not all member states recognise its supremacy. National judicial systems vary greatly too. There is no single "police" either (Europol is an intelligence agency), so there would be no need for oversight.

As for "beating up on America", thats going to get an MP here nowhere, given the current climate of massive tax increases and political corruption [reuters.com] scandal people are too busy with their ow

Maybe my dictionary is out of date, but I never have thought that a court ordered subpoena is a "spying" activity. If they broke in to twitter and trolled through data that would be spying.

Looking at the website it's coming from... maybe I understand now why they think a subpoena is "spying". They say the Bradley Manning is currently being tortured by US jailers, and insinuate the subpoena is a front to cover the trail of supposedly confirmed NSA wiretaps 2x blocks from Twitter HQ. Sure sounds like level headed, unbiased facts abound there.

On the face of it this may be silly as EU law obviously doesn't apply to US companies. That however would be misreading the whole thing. The EU is controlled by two entities the European Parliament and the Commission. The latter writes the laws and proposals and the former votes for or against them.

Members of European Parliament (MEPs) are democratically elected. Their primary problem is that nobody in Europe cares what they do or what they say. The EU decisions are in practice always complex compromises. The UK may vote for privacy laws the Netherlands wants in exchange for increased fishing quotas and the Netherlands wants it because the Dutch government can use it as a political tool for some other purpose. In short political ideology does not exist in the EU. This is a big problem for MEPs as they can't get reelected unless they get enough publicity and look as if they are doing something the voters care about. The system works against them and so on occasion they make loud noises about any issue they think will be of interest to the voters. Given the complex nature of compromises in the EU they seldom have the opportunity to do this. In this case the opportunity they saw was in the word "twitter". They know that voters recognize it and have scrambled to make themselves look like they are doing something decisive in the public interest. It's not real, it's just collecting brownie points from the public and getting their name in the papers. So you can forget about it. It has nothing to do with EU privacy laws or the US or twitter - it's strictly a PR thing.

The other branch of the EU executive and legislative power is the Commission. It has two functions. One is to act in the interest of the entity that controls it - the EU's civil service and the other is to provide a mechanism for national level politicians to get unpopular decisions through. The EU is run and controlled by the EU bureaucracy - it's civil servants. The Commissioners represent primarily the interest of their departments. The interest of the civil service is entirely self serving. They are for sending SWIFT data to the US as it will mean many fact finding trips to the US and other countries for the people in the departments. They are strongly for the introduction of checks and balances for sending the data as it creates more work for the civil service and ultimately increases their budget. The politicians on the national level have no problem with this as their use of the Commission is to get through unpopular legislation. When something popular is introduced it's always handled at the national level and the local politicians take credit for it. When it's something unpopular they simply say "we hate it too, but it's EU legislation, we can't do anything about it".

That's how the system works and it's not easy for the MEPs as they are not civil servants, they are politicians and need publicity and votes while they are not really meant to have any significant political power. That's why there was such an outrage at the EP rejecting a gay bashing candidate for the post of the Commissioner for Justice a few years back. Things like that are not supposed to happen and as a rule they don't. So when you hear that the EP is making an inquiry or that MEPs are making noises about something, you can safely ignore it. It doesn't have to make sense as nothing will ever come of it - they are just trying to get themselves noticed in order to get reelected.

It's also about expectations of privacy. Clearly Europeans are under the impression that their privacy laws are in operation when they are using web sites owned by USA based companies, and just as clearly the US Federal government does not think that European privacy laws apply when those people are accessing services offered from the USA.

If this story isn't about tweets, then what, pray tell is it about? It's about twitter, the Federal Government, and privacy.

Yeah, but what details could be there? Maybe they can guess location at a given time by checking IP addresses, or maybe they can get real names. But don't they know that already? Don't most people volunteer that sort of information? And why would that be important? Yes, I get that it shouldn't be looked into anyway, privacy is about not having to disclose exactly whatever you don't wish to disclose, not solely what's deemed important, but I think the most important thing is to realize that if they were look

They subpoenad twitter not for the tweets but for IP logs and private account information pertaining to certain accounts. They basically want to know from which computers and where the users logged in from (ie. the IP), at what times (ie. IP log), and what they did while there. They'll also know the e-mails, passwords, and other information from those accounts.THAT, my friend, is definitely not public and I think that's a huge breach of privacy even for these reasons because the US not only subpoenad for the WikiLeaks accounts but many others that were associated with the scandal.

Tweets are, both normally sent ones and ones that are sent as replies (though most feeds ignore tweets sent as replies). Twitter does allow you to send people a direct message though, and those aren't public.

Not the same. Radio stations pay a licensing fee for a public performance of the music, not a fee for a private listening. Its public broadcasting because it was paid by the radio station to be publicly broadcasted.

The article isn't about spying on Twitter. Its about demanding the information without a legal reason to do so. The US has no legal leg to stand on for demanding this information, yet they did it anyways.

It's not particularly unusual for a side in a legal proceeding to attempt to exceed what they're allowed to do. It's kind of a part of the adversarial justice system. Twitter now files a motion to quash the subpoena based on whatever reasoning they choose, and we go from there.

They do have the legal right to request the information. This comes under US law and given that there is an ongoing investigation into what Pfc Manning may or may not have leaked it most certainly is relevant. Now, it might be that most or all of the people aren't involved, but you can't very well know that without doing an investigation.

If you don't like our privacy laws, then don't user our services. I don't think that it's that unreasonable to recognize that a service that's headquartered and provided

Your mistake is assuming that American law applies. There's no question that it's legal within the US, however services offered in Europe to European citizens is subject to European law. The information sought is clearly protected under European laws.

Why do I even bother? It's Slashdot, mostly Americans and people reading this don't know the details of any legal system.